Dorfner Anzaplan to immediately begin product development and pilot scale production program design

CENTENNIAL, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--$WWR #graphite--Westwater Resources, Inc. (“Westwater”) (Nasdaq: WWR), an energy materials development company, announced today that it has engaged Dorfner Anzaplan of Hirschau, Germany to advance the development of processes needed to purify graphite concentrates and to produce the Company’s battery grade products: ULTRA-PMG™, ULTRA-DEXDG™ and ULTRA-CSPG™.

Dorfner Anzaplan is an internationally recognized and highly regarded organization that specializes in high-purity industrial and strategic metals businesses. They employ state-of-the-art analytical methods and facilities and employ innovative processing technologies to provide effective solutions tailored to their clients’ requirements.

Dorfner Anzaplan and Westwater will collaborate to scale up laboratory sample production to pilot scale production rates, through new work anticipated to be executed over the next 8-months including:

  • Defining the method, equipment and operating parameters and requirements for graphite purification;
  • Defining operating parameters and equipment for processes required to manufacture Westwater’s battery graphite products; and
  • Designing Westwater’s pilot program.

Westwater’s pilot scale program will utilize the 20 metric tons of graphite concentrate feedstock received from our supplier. This graphite concentrate shipment to Westwater’s Sylacauga warehouse was previously announced in our October 15, 2019 press release. The pilot plant resulting from this work program with Dorfner Anzaplan, will provide various product sizes of each of the Company’s three principal battery-grade conductivity enhancement products to potential clients to advance the prospective clients’ commodity evaluation and pre-qualification programs. This large-scale sample testing effort is the next step in the development schedule of the Coosa Graphite Project as it advances to a commercial production decision.

Christopher M. Jones, President and Chief Executive Officer, said, “Partnering with Dorfner Anzaplan provides a significant advantage to Westwater in the development of battery graphite materials for customer testing. With this arrangement with Dorfner Anzaplan, Westwater is taking significant steps forward in becoming the next US-based producer of battery-grade graphite products for the energy storage industry.”

Dr. Reiner Haus, Managing Director of Dorfner Anzaplan, commented, “We are pleased to provide our expertise to the most advanced natural flake graphite project in the United States and bring the project to the next level. Participating in the development processes of Westwater Resources’ Coosa Graphite Project is a privilege."

About Westwater Resources

WWR is focused on developing energy-related materials. The Company’s battery-materials projects include the Coosa Graphite Project — the most advanced natural flake graphite project in the contiguous United States — and the associated Coosa Graphite Mine located across 41,900 acres (~17,000 hectares) in east-central Alabama. In addition, the Company controls lithium mineral properties in two prospective lithium brine basins in Nevada and Utah. Westwater’s uranium projects are located in Texas and New Mexico. In Texas, the Company has two licensed and currently idled uranium processing facilities and approximately 11,000 acres (~4,400 hectares) of prospective in-situ recovery uranium projects. In New Mexico, the Company controls mineral rights encompassing approximately 188,700 acres (~76,000 hectares) in the prolific Grants Mineral Belt, which is one of the largest concentrations of sandstone-hosted uranium deposits in the world. Incorporated in 1977 as Uranium Resources, Inc., Westwater also owns an extensive uranium information database of historic drill hole logs, assay certificates, maps and technical reports for the western United States. For more information, visit www.westwaterresources.net.

About Dorfner Anzaplan

Dorfner is a leading European specialty minerals producer delivering high quality mineral products to different industries. ANZAPLAN was founded in 1985 to become the most independent venture within the Dorfner group of companies while concentrating the group’s analytical and engineering know-how to serve external customers.

Extensive know-how in the specialty minerals processing, including liberation of fine-grained minerals, separation, flotation and mechanical, chemical and thermal modification derived from more than a century of day-to-day processing experience at Dorfner, has been successfully applied in the processing of various graphite raw materials. Furthermore, ANZAPLAN has detailed expertise in advanced chemical and thermal purification, upgrading graphite concentrates to up to 99.9+ purity levels.

Today ANZAPLAN is a specialist with a strong focus on specialty minerals and metals businesses (e.g. graphite, lithium minerals, rare earth elements, high purity quartz), providing a one-stop shop solution across all phases of the economic evaluation and process development - with technological expertise from its own laboratories, test center and pilot plant processing facilities including basic and advanced engineering services.

Purification processes including mechanical, chemical and thermal refinement technologies are key elements in ANZAPLAN’s and Dorfner’s daily business to efficiently remove impurities by targeting high value products.

ANZAPLAN’s experience in the processing of graphite includes extensive test work carried out for a number of different projects including flake and hydrothermal vein graphite deposits as well as processing of synthetic graphite.

Cautionary Statement

This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions and are identified by words such as “expects,” “estimates,” “projects,” “anticipates,” “believes,” “could,” and other similar words. All statements addressing events or developments that WWR expects or anticipates will occur in the future, including but not limited to statements relating to the planned startup of and production from the Coosa Graphite Processing Facility and any future production of graphite feedstock from the Coosa Graphite Mine, are forward-looking statements. Because they are forward-looking, they should be evaluated in light of important risk factors and uncertainties. These risk factors and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, (a) the Company’s ability to successfully implement the Coosa Graphite Project business plan including elements associated with the planned pilot plant and its processes, and the risk that additional analysis of the Coosa Graphite Project may result in revisions to that business plan; (b) the Company’s ability to raise additional capital in the future; (c) spot price and long-term contract price of graphite, lithium, vanadium and uranium; (d) risks associated with our domestic operations; (e) operating conditions at the Company’s projects; (f) government and tribal regulation of the graphite industry, the lithium industry, the vanadium industry, the uranium industry, and the power industry; (g) world-wide graphite, lithium, vanadium and uranium supply and demand, including the supply and demand for lithium-based batteries; (h) maintaining sufficient financial assurance in the form of sufficiently collateralized surety instruments; (i) unanticipated geological, processing, regulatory and legal or other problems the Company may encounter in the jurisdictions where the Company operates or intends to operate, including in Alabama, Texas, New Mexico, Utah, and Nevada; (j) the ability of the Company to enter into and successfully close acquisitions or other material transactions; (k) the results of the Company’s lithium brine exploration activities at the Columbus Basin and Sal Rica projects, and the possibility that future exploration results may be materially less promising than initial exploration resu< (I) any graphite, lithium, vanadium or uranium discoveries not being in high-enough concentration to make it economic to extract the metals; (m) currently pending or new litigation or arbitration; and (n) other factors which are more fully described in the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize or should any of the Company’s underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those currently anticipated. In addition, undue reliance should not be placed on the Company’s forward-looking statements. Except as required by law, the Company disclaims any obligation to update or publicly announce any revisions to any of the forward-looking statements contained in this news release.

Contacts

Westwater Resources Contact: Christopher M. Jones, President & CEO Phone: 303.531.0480 Jeff Vigil, VP Finance & CFO Phone: 303.531.0481 Email: Info@WestwaterResources.net Investor Relations Contact: Michael Porter Porter, LeVay and Rose Phone: 212.564.4700 Email: Westwater@plrinvest.com